5 Steps to a Whitepaper that Captures Leads

A great whitepaper can be a fantastic lead generator for just about anyone seeking to be a recognized expert on a given topic. A white paper is a 3 to 10 page document that helps your prospective customers solve a problem.

how to capture leads

Whitepapers are not just for the biggest firms in your industry or for professional writers only. You can write a great whitepaper and use it to create buzz, generate leads and elevate your game to the top in your profession.

Follow these 5 steps to write a killer whitepaper for your organization:

  1. Solve Your Customer’s Problem – Make sure you pick a topic that is popular and that solves a need for your target market. Check out other blogs and social media sites to see what topics are hot.
  2. Make it Substantial – A whitepaper is not a blog. It lands somewhere between a blog and a mini-PhD thesis. It is authoritative (quote your sources) and shows readers your expertise in the field.
  3. Get the Look – If you are not a graphics person, find someone who is. You’ll have charts and graphs and hopefully a nice cover page to grab your readers’ attention and keep it throughout the paper.
  4. Don’t Call it a Whitepaper! – Says Gordon Graham at thatwhitepaperguy.com. If you are a consultant or marketer, you probably know what to expect when you see the term whitepaper, but most people don’t. Call your document a “special report” so that your readers will know that this document contains real information that they need to know.
  5. Promote, Promote, Promote – Create a great landing page for your new creation with eye catching numbers or summaries that make it impossible for your visitors not to sign up for your whitepaper. Post links to your document with great headlines on all your social media accounts and submit a press release to PRWeb or a similar service. You’ve put in the hard work to create a fantastic whitepaper, now make sure people read it!

Now that you know how to create and market a great whitepaper, what are you waiting for? I’m working on mine now!

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Image courtesy of http://pixabay.com/en/white-paper-card-62015/

 

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